i play mostly m2m, like you said, it seems easy. 1-5 guards 1-5. i'm not sure who guards who in a zone. in my head, defense on the 1 is probably like 60% your 1 and like 40% dispersed among the other 4 guys on the floor. in real life, it'd be very reliant on the 5 and then the 4 for helpside, but this isn't real life and as far as i know the 5 isn't as important as it should be on d, though i can't really verify that.

years back i think it was wooden d2 i had a good run with a young team and i got smashed by someone in the f4 i think where i just shot like 30% from the field. i looked and noticed he was playing a zone, but with a team defensive rating of like 65+ or something. most of his starters were in the 80s or 90s, which is obviously exceptional for d2. i immediately tried it and have had some great defensive teams for the zone. the moral of the story i guess is that defense matters for zone, although i guess i'd say you could get away with poor defenders fouling less (and using less stamina) with zone.

i usually just play 2-3 if the team rebounds well compared to their opponents and 3-2 if they shoot a lot of 3s at a good percentage. i try to figure out which one of those things they do better and then use the D that will prevent them from doing it. i don't really +/- too often unless the team just shoots so few 3s that they aren't a threat or they are so superior to me at rebounding that i need to do something about it.

do you feel you put yourself at a disadvantage by using +/- settings? I normally try to stay away from zero and that could be my problem. In my zone I lean more toward a negative setting to hopefully keep me close in the offensive rebounding category but of course that leaves me open to per shooting.

I vary my settings every game. Going back to the uptempo discussion, I run uptempo just about every game with Palm Beach Atlantic, which has been my best team. We have made the final 4 in 7 of the last 8 years, and five straight. My teams are typically 11 or 12 players deep and I play fairly fresh for all players. I focus on conditioning a lot, so we have good stamina. I believe that because of the depth and conditioning that we are able to wear most teams down, and that my bench is superior to most teams benches. Just my opinion though, because I have not tried playing normal or slow much, since we have done so well with up tempo.

HOWEVER - after I posted this, we lost in the final 4 by 4 points after my two best PGs fouled out. Now I am wondering if they would have played longer in the game had I set the team to normal.

As a note, while I don't know what higher ranks people might have pulled down at d2, I pulled down the #124 PG, so at least that high is definitely possible.
How high have other people managed to pull down? (Modern era since all the changes)

bump for the request on page 9 for gillespie's link to statistics alleging that uptempo lowers FG% against good defenses, all things being equal.

Let's also not forget the increasing marginal utility of being fouled, as the bonus and double bonus are hit. The comparative value of shooting FTs instead of FGs increases as the quality of the defense increases. Of course maybe double bonus > shooting from the field > single bonus in some cases. Then things get complex.

1. I haven't seen any effects that going uptempo forces rushed shots here in HD. In RL, I can see that and it seems somewhat intuitive, but I just haven't really seen that here in HD. You said it has been shown statistically that going uptempo affects a lot of things besides just number of possessions. I don't recall seeing these statistics. Do you have a link or a previous posting that refers to this?

2. Against equal or superior foes, going uptempo may not be the right strategy for sure. I still think tempo choice is a balance b/w the 2 factors I mentioned. You say to segregate the inferior opponents from the superior opponents. That's essentially what I'm saying to do as well when deciding to go uptempo vs. slowdown. Against a great team I'm not going to go uptempo.

3. You said: "in reality, IMO, the impact of the downside of uptempo on basic performance metrics usually over powers the impact of #1 and #2, making an otherwise smart uptempo decision, a signficant detriment." Did you mean this as a blanket statement or against a "superior" team? In your original response to my post, you didn't mention anything about superior teams...so if you meant it as a blanket statement, I think that's an erroneous line of thinking.

1) it was by bobjoejim - and i dont think it specifically addressed fg%. it did disprove the common interpretation of CS's comments on uptempo, which i always diametrically opposed. however, take this for what its worth, there is almost nothing in the whole game that i was as sure about in the old engine, as uptempo kills fg% against solid defenses. (outside things like, speed is great for press, per helps making 3s, etc - it was one of the things i was most sure of that the community did not totally embrace)

2) really, i think uptempo is possibly appropriate against massively inferior opponents with bad defense. i didnt mean to at all imply it comes down to who is better.

3) this is a blanket statement, applied to any opponent with good defense. NOTE - in the new engine, press complicates the issue, due to possibility of foul trouble. if you are pressing and your opponent is not, you should probably never in your life play uptempo. if neither plays press, revert to prior sentiments about uptempo. if your opponent plays press, further investigation may be required, but my gut says that unless you are going for the freak upset, uptempo is probably a bad idea, as pushing for fouls is a pure volatility strategy.

Posted by aejones on 4/25/2012 5:41:00 AM (view original):No, if you want to overthink your distro, you can. You could continue to tweak it based on their TS% and TO% (or just eye test their overall efficiency). You can use higher numbers. It doesn't really matter, honestly, do whatever makes you feel perfectly about the team, I've just never found it to be that important outside of making sure non-scorers are set at zero. I think right now one of my teams has 5-1-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 or something, another one has like 1-1-1-1-1-0-0-0-0-0 or something, so I just use whatever I think is best. Use big numbers if you please, but no need to make them add up to anywhere near 100.